


The Light That Shines in the Darkness

by K_Hanna_Korossy



Category: The Dead Zone
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-01-01
Updated: 2004-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-06 09:32:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5411753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K_Hanna_Korossy/pseuds/K_Hanna_Korossy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tag to "Here There Be Monsters." Bruce doesn't get Johnny's reaction at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Light That Shines in the Darkness

How could this have happened?

Bruce touched a finger to the sticky, half-dried blood that coated the side of his face, and would have shaken his head if it hadn’t hurt so much. How could something like this happen in today’s world, in supposedly civilized society? People just didn’t get burned at the stake anymore, not for any reason, let alone practicing _witchcraft_. It was insanity.

“You okay?” came the soft voice from beside him.

Bruce turned to stare in disbelief at Johnny Smith, the man sharing the back seat with him. The one who’d nearly been the sacrificial lamb at the barbeque the good folks of Hobbs Landing had arranged, and who hadn’t said a word since then. He’d been shivering as Bruce and Dana had led him away from the mob, leaning heavily on Bruce without his cane, and in mild shock. His weight had pulled on Bruce’s aching side, but he’d been more concerned about Johnny. At the car, Dana found a blanket from somewhere and they’d wrapped him in it and gotten him into the back seat. Where he’d sat in withdrawn silence until now, when he’d asked how _Bruce_ was.

Maybe he read Bruce’s apparent disbelief as confusion, for Johnny nodded slightly at Bruce’s red-smeared fingers and added, “You’re bleeding.”

“You must be psychic,” Bruce said with gentle sarcasm. Actually, he was really touched the man had noticed his condition at all. He knew those eyes that weren’t quite meeting his were haunted. More sincerely, he said, “I’m okay, just a little beat up. Some of the ‘good ole boys’ met me outside town.”

A shadow passed over his friend’s perpetually preoccupied face, and Johnny nodded once. Then his eyes closed, and he shut the world out once more. There was always a lot Johnny wasn’t telling him, Bruce knew that, but it had rarely hit him so keenly before.

How _did_ a guy feel after he’d nearly been burned alive? It didn’t seem to be the rage that was nearly choking Bruce, that made him want to scream, maybe knock a few heads together of his own. No, Johnny just sat there, silent and pale and carefully _not touching,_ his face slightly creased now. Seeing the fire, the hatred on the peoples’ faces? Johnny had pulled away from them once they reached the car, shunning physical contact except for his white-fingered grip on the knob of the cane the lawyer had brought with him, and Bruce wondered if the shock had made his dead zone more sensitive as it tended to do to other senses. Maybe he was even picking stuff up from the blanket—who knew? There was so much they still didn’t get about how Johnny worked.

Bruce was starting to think he didn’t know the man as well as he’d thought, too.

Dana and the lawyer conferred in hushed tones in the front seat, and Bruce heard the word “doctor.” The lawyer—Gabe?—nodded and made a turn. Bruce couldn’t argue. There was nothing he wanted more than to leave that godforsaken little town, but he was ready to fall flat on his face, and Johnny… Well, a total stranger would have seen he was hurting.

The car took another turn hard and Johnny slid fractionally toward him. Bruce lifted a hand to steady him, then rethought the motion and put it back down. If Johnny didn’t want to be touched, Bruce would respect that. He just didn’t have to like it.

The edge of town came into view, then the sign cheerfully welcoming them to Hobbs Landing. Bruce scowled at it. “The Town Time Forgot”—yeah, they’d nearly landed back in the Salem Witch Trials. And because Johnny had tried to help them. Talk about ungrateful, narrow-minded people…

And yet the town itself looked pleasant, peaceful, the kind of place a lot of people wanted to raise their kids in. It had certainly fooled Bruce when they’d first arrived. Johnny had seen through it almost from the start, though—did he always see past the façade into the heart of a place or person? It was a question that

troubled Bruce sometimes, but Johnny had never shied away from him so apparently Bruce had passed the test. It was flattering, in a way. But in others—did Johnny see the darkness when all Bruce saw was pleasant surfaces?

Bruce glanced back at the man next to him, noting how Johnny had shut his eyes even tighter, still caught in some internal vision of his, and nodded to himself. Oh, yeah. He saw.

And it had nearly burned him alive this time.

Bruce shivered, glowering at the buildings they passed and counting the minutes he could put Hobbs Landing behind him for good.

The car pulled up in front of a white clapboard building on the right, unremarkable except for the shingle hung out by the door: William Foster, M.D. 

Bill Foster, as it turned out, was everything the town had not been. Answering the door himself in unassuming corduroys and a denim shirt with a white coat, the man reminded Bruce of Dr. McCoy from TV with his wiry frame and salt-and-pepper hair, but especially the kind blue eyes. Foster’s friendly smile had immediately turned into concern when he’d caught sight of Bruce, and he’d ushered them inside without hesitation.

The small waiting room was comfortably decorated, and Dr. Foster pointed to the few chairs scattered around. “The rest of you, please, wait here while I have a look at Mister…?”

“Lewis,” Bruce provided. “But Johnny here—Mr. Smith—he needs to be checked out, too.”

If the doctor knew anything about Johnny’s trial or what the town thought of him, he didn’t show it. He gave the psychic a searching look in which Bruce saw only honest worry, then he lifted a hand to include Johnny, too. “Gentlemen.”

Bruce couldn’t help but notice how Johnny avoided the hand, leaning heavily on his cane as he followed them into the interior room while Bruce let the doctor take some of his own weight. He was tired, and any suspicions about another citizen of Hobbs Landing had evaporated at the doctor’s compassion.

Through the second door was a small examination room, complete with diagnostic table and old style glass-and-metal cabinets lining the walls, full of medicines and equipment. On the left wall was a large, framed diploma, and Bruce saw Johnny’s eyes briefly track to it before returning to watch his progress. His friend seemed to be out of his interior world now, interested in what was happening to Bruce.

The doctor helped Bruce ease up onto the edge of the diagnostic table, then waved a hand at a nearby chair. “Mr. Smith, why don’t you have a seat?”

Johnny eyed the chair for a long moment before sinking down on it as if he were afraid it might bite, then looked surprised when it didn’t. No vision, Bruce interpreted. Maybe he’d been right about Johnny’s increased sensitivity earlier. Which had probably made his almost-death even more of a hell than the rest of them had imagined.

The doctor immediately took out some supplies and set to cleaning Bruce’s cut with surprisingly gentle hands. “So, what kind of trouble found you two?”

“This town,” Bruce answered darkly.

“We were attacked,” Johnny said, laconic as always.

“Really.” The doctor’s tone was mild. “Would this have anything to do with the Reed tragedy?”

Bruce almost pulled away from the doctor, eyeing him with new suspicion. “You know about that?”

Dr. Foster sighed. “Everyone in this town knows about that. Set more than a few people on edge, tempers running high. I figured it was just a matter of time before someone got caught in the explosion.”

Bruce settled back again, wincing as the alcohol dabbed near his cut. “Yeah, well, if by ‘tempers running high’ you mean lynch mobs, yeah, you could say we were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

The doctor shook his head. “I don’t understand it, myself. Times of crisis, you should pull together, not pull apart. Might’ve found that Reed girl sooner if there hadn’t been so much hate and suspicion all over the place.”

Johnny sat silent in the corner, unmoving, listening, watching them with those penetrating eyes.

“There.” Foster taped a bandage on. “Are you hurt anywhere else, Mr. Lewis?”

Bruce shook his head. “Just a little sore.”

“His abdomen,” Johnny spoke up.

Bruce made a face at him as the doctor coaxed up his shirt, clucking as he found and pressed every aching spot in Bruce’s side and stomach. “That’s quite a beating you took there, young man. Any sharp pains? Difficulty breathing?”

“No.”

“Cough gently for me, please.”

Bruce did, reluctantly, wincing. The doctor nodded, looking satisfied. “I believe you’ll live, Mr. Lewis. Nothing seems to be cracked or torn. I can call for an x-ray if you want at Hellman Hospital Center, closest hospital we’ve got around here, but I think you’ll be all right if you take it easy for a week or so, let yourself heal. Wouldn’t hurt to put some heat on those bruises when you get the chance, too.”

Bruce was already shaking his head at the hospital part when Johnny put in again, “So he shouldn’t be driving?”

“Not for a few days, if possible,” Foster affirmed.

Bruce looked daggers at his friend and Johnny surprised him with the barest hint of a smile, the first since they’d rolled into Hobbs Landing.

“Now, as for you, Mr. Smith…” The doctor turned to his second patient.

“I’m okay, sir—Bruce was the one who was attacked.”

“You were the one who was almost killed,” Bruce answered back pointedly.

The doctor’s gaze went back and forth between the two of them. “Killed? Were you also beaten, Mr. Smith?”

“No, sir.”

“Johnny—”

“Manhandled?”

Johnny hesitated. “A little.”

“I’d like to check you out, if you don’t mind.” But as Foster advanced on him a step, Johnny shrank back.

And Bruce suddenly understood.

“Uh, doctor, any way you can look at him without touching him?”

Foster turned back to him with surprise, then a smile. “Was I that rough with you, Mr. Lewis?”

“It’s not that, it’s just…Johnny has this thing about being touched.”

“Ah.” The older man didn’t seem entirely convinced, but he faced Johnny again and said in soothing tones, “Do you hurt anywhere, Mr. Smith?”

“My wrists,” Johnny said reluctantly.

“May I see them?”

With slow motions, Johnny reached up to push back first one sleeve, then the other of the dirty sweatshirt he wore. Bruce’s eyes narrowed at the mottled bruises on his wrists, the few patches of torn and oozing flesh. He had a vague memory of untying the ropes that held Johnny at the stake, but he’d been in a blur of his own pain and the crowd’s violence and hadn’t noticed the condition of the man’s wrists. Now, he felt his fury rise anew at the vicious townspeople.

The doctor bent this way and that, examining all sides of Johnny’s arms without touching, and Bruce felt his respect for the man inch up another notch. “Well, those don’t look too bad, young man. How about I give you some ointment to put on the open wounds and then some gauze to wrap around it? We want to protect it from infection, give it time to heal.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Johnny said.

“All right. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“Nothing serious, sir.”

Bruce and the doctor both narrowed their eyes at him, recognizing the dodge, Bruce from experience with the man, the doctor doubtless from his professional experience. But neither pushed. Presumably, Foster saw what Bruce did, that Johnny’s color had returned, that he didn’t wince in pain at movement, that there were no lingering signs of shock.

“All right,” Foster said again, straightening. He went to one of his cabinets and began to rummage through it.

A knock came at the door, then Dana stuck her head in. “Johnny, Bruce—the sheriff’s here. He’d like to get a statement from you two?” She gave them both questioning glances, probably both to gauge their reactions and to see if they were all right. At the sight of Johnny’s wrists, her breath caught. Johnny noticed and lowered his arms out of sight, his face turning away.

The sheriff. Why couldn’t they just leave them alone and let them get out of Dodge, already, Bruce fumed. It didn’t help that when Foster returned to hand Johnny the ointment and bandages, Bruce saw his friend’s hands tremble as they took them. Hadn’t they been through enough?

“You can use this room, if you’d like,” the doctor then surprised him by saying. “As you can see, I don’t have any waiting clients at the moment, and I imagine the sheriff’s office is the last place you’d want to be right now.”

Which both made a lot of sense and was awfully nice of the man. “Thank you,” Bruce said, touched, and heard Johnny echo the sentiment. Okay, so the town wasn’t all bad. They’d just lucked into the heart of darkness, it seemed.

He’d never given a statement before although Johnny seemed too aware of the process, and it turned out they had to be separated for it so they wouldn’t taint each others’ stories. Bruce would have preferred staying to make sure Johnny was okay, maybe provide a little moral support, but his friend had waved him out of the examination room with another wan smile and promised he’d be fine. At least the sheriff seemed humbled and apologetic, ashamed of his town and anxious to make amends. Quite a change from before. Foster excused himself, and Bruce grudgingly went back out into the waiting room.

Dana and Gabe were still there, looking as uncomfortable as he felt.

“Are you okay?” Dana’s usual polite aloofness was gone, her question sincere. Bruce thawed, remembering how hard she’d tried earlier to help Johnny. In fact, it was probably because of her they’d gotten that last minute save.

“I’m okay,” he muttered, then dropped into a chair and looked up balefully at the lawyer. “What’s gonna happen now?”

Gabe was looking a little pale himself. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like this before. The sheriff said he was arresting everyone there, but I can’t see him charging two dozen people with attempted murder…”

“Why not?” Bruce said coldly. “That’s what they did.”

The lawyer shook his head and was silent.

Bruce switched his gaze to Dana. “How ’bout the Cruiser?”

“Sheriff Danforth brought it with him. He said you were free to go after the depositions.”

Bruce squirmed a fraction. “About your car, Dana…”

She shook her head. “Don’t worry about it, it’s a rental. I’ll work it out.” And she smiled at him, sad and sorry.

For the first time, Bruce could sort of see what Johnny liked in her besides the legs and the eyes.

It seemed a long time before the door opened and Johnny limped out, giving Bruce a twitch of the mouth as he hitched a thumb over his shoulder. “Your turn.”

“Thanks,” Bruce said dryly, and went.

Actually, it wasn’t as bad as he’d thought. The sheriff knew most of the story already, just wanting to hear about his being run off the road and everything after. Bruce told the story with bitter reflection, recalling the names he’d overheard, the racial slurs they’d used, the scene they’d dragged him to in the clearing in the woods, and Johnny’s revelation of who’d really killed Susie Reed, right before they’d tried to kill him for it.

“Funny thing is, he did exactly what you asked him to—he figured out who the murderer was for you and were Cathy was. And what kind of thanks did he get? Y’all nearly _burned_ him to death.”

The sheriff, sitting across from him, flinched. “Mr. Lewis, I’ve said this to Mr. Smith, too, but I’ll say it again—I don’t stand behind what that mob did. They will be punished, and steps will be taken to make sure something like this never happens again. I can’t apologize enough that it almost happened to you, but I do want to say, well, that kind of rage isn’t what Hobbs Landing is about. You had the bad luck of coming here when everyone was still scared to death about the murderers and worried about Cathy. That’s not who we normally are.”

“That wasn’t fear I saw in the guys who ran me off the road, Sheriff. That was hatred,” Bruce said flatly. “And maybe that’s not what they’re normally like, but I guess it’s been inside them all along.”

The sheriff nodded heavily, eyes downcast, and Bruce felt a twinge of pity. Yeah, the man had been a big part of what had happened to Johnny, but he’d been as shocked at the scene at the end as Bruce had, and _he_ knew all the people in that mob personally, including his own deputy. Bruce didn’t want to be in the man’s shoes during the next weeks and months of sorting out who in the town had almost become a murderer and what would happen to them now.

“Can I go?” he asked mutedly.

The sheriff nodded again. “I brought your car around. You and Mr. Smith are free to go, although you may be asked to return to testify.”

Bruce snorted, pushing himself stiffly to his feet and striding out the door.

Johnny had managed to clean up in the meantime, in fresh clothes and his face washed. He was just finishing tucking in the gauze on one wrist as Dana watched, and Johnny pulled his sleeves down to cover the bandages as he looked up at Bruce. “All finished?”

“Yeah. You ready to go?”

A real smile this time, if rueful. All the answer needed.

Dr. Foster showed up to usher them out, and Johnny caught himself, reaching into his pocket. “How much do we owe you, doctor?”

But Foster shook his head, his expression sober. “I heard how you two got those injuries. I think it’s this town that owes you, not vice versa, Mr. Smith.”

“But you weren’t a part of that,” Bruce protested. If anything, the guy had restored some small bit of Bruce’s faith in the world.

“It’s a small town,” the doctor answered regretfully. “We’re all a part of anything that happens, including turning a blind eye to a disturbed mother who ends up murdering her own child. I’m just sorry you two got caught up in it. You look after one another and that’ll be payment enough for me.”

Johnny nodded and turned away to join Dana and Gabe at the street. Bruce hesitated a moment, looking the doctor in the eye.

“There’s a big difference between doin’ something on purpose and being a part of something without realizing it, Doc.”

“Is there, Mr. Lewis?” Foster asked. “Aren’t we all responsible in our own way?”

Bruce grimaced, looked away, shuffled briefly in place. Hadn’t that been pretty much what he’d said to the sheriff, too? He finally shook his head and followed Johnny down. He could feel the doctor’s eyes on his back until he reached the curb, and then the door shut quietly behind him.

They said their good-byes to Dana and Gabe, and then Bruce stiffly got into the Cruiser, Johnny going around to the driver’s side.

Three minutes later, they passed the town limits in silence.

Bruce found himself slowly relaxing as they put distance between themselves and Hobbs Landing, trees taking the place of houses around them, the quiet starting to seep into him. And yet the doctor’s words remained.

_Aren’t we responsible in our own way?_

He’d been among the disbelievers when he’d first met Johnny, not quite able to accept the idea of the visions or precognition, humoring the man as he’d humored so many of his patients in the past. He’d learned better quickly, of course, but…

But hadn’t he doubted in his own way when Johnny had sent him away earlier that day?

Bruce fidgeted uncomfortably at the thought. Johnny had told him to leave town and he’d finally done so, angrily, feeling rejected. Never considering that maybe Johnny had seen his beating, seen what had finally happened to him, and had been trying to protect him. Scared for _him_ , even while his visions were showing Johnny his own horrible death, and pushing away his friend for his own good while he faced death alone.

Bruce flushed, suddenly very ashamed.

“Uh, listen, John…”

Johnny looked away from the road, giving Bruce his full attention, no resentment visible.

Bruce sighed heavily. “Look, I gotta apologize for before. You sent me away ’cause you knew what was gonna happen to me and I didn’t get that and was mad at you. I’m sorry—I shoulda known better.”

“Don’t worry about it, man.”

“Well, I am. Last thing you needed was someone on your side throwing a temper tantrum. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you more.”

“Bruce, I mean it, it’s okay. I was having a little trouble believing what I was seeing, too.” His gaze was divided now between the road and Bruce, but he was driving carefully as to avoid jarring his passenger, and his attention was completely on Bruce.

He could believe that. Bruce didn’t even want to know how much detail Johnny had seen in his vision. “They wouldn’t’ve even known about you in the first place if I hadn’t opened my big mouth.”

“You were trying to help. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

_Nothing wrong with that._

And all of Bruce’s earlier anger unexpectedly came flooding back.

He turned in his seat, heedless of his body’s disapproval. “How can you say that?! John, they tied you to the middle of a bonfire today and were this close to setting it—and you—on fire. And why? Because you tried to help them. I’d say there’s a lot wrong with that. How can you sit there and be so calm about it when the people you keep trying to help turn on you like that all the time?”

Johnny drove on in silence, eyes only on the road now.

Shame crept into Bruce. His best friend had nearly been killed that day, and here he was yelling at him for not freaking out about it like Bruce was. As if that would make it all better. “Listen, man, I’m—”

“It’s okay.”

Bruce made a helpless motion. “You keep saying that, but it’s not, Johnny. I thought they were gonna _kill_ you there. That is _not_ okay!”

The car suddenly pulled to the side of the road, slow enough not to slam Bruce against the side of the Cruiser, fast enough that it was clear Johnny was only holding back for his sake. And then Johnny had twisted to face him, his expression dark with anger. “Would you feel better if I said it makes me mad that those people back there were ready roast me alive rather than face their real enemies? That they beat my friend half to death just because he stuck up for me? That a whole town can stand back and allow something like this to happen in the twenty-first century? Of course I was mad—I was furious! And frustrated, and terrified…” Johnny took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes, his hand trembling again.

Shame and compassion overcame Bruce’s rage for the first time, and he sat in humbled silence, waiting.

When Johnny looked up and spoke again, it was softly, his anger also gone. “But that doesn’t help anything, you know? It just means you’ve let them change you. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve changed enough already the last few years—I won’t give them that, too. I just feel sorry for them.”

Bruce slowly shook his head. “How can you feel that way, looking into the dark side of people all the time?”

Johnny’s gaze had turned inward. “It’s not the first time people have been scared because they didn’t understand. It’s not even the worst side of them I’ve seen, Bruce. You wanna hear about dark, try living in a murderer’s or a drug dealer’s shoes.”

Bruce swallowed. Those weren’t even the visions that bothered Johnny the most, he knew. He’d also witnessed his mother’s suicide, seen the possible death of the woman he loved. A fear-motivated mob was probably small potatoes by now. But still… “So how do you live with it?” he asked in a subdued voice.

Johnny’s hands had returned to the steering wheel and he flexed them absently around the metal and plastic. “Because I see other things, too,” he finally said.

Bruce sat still, watching him, listening.

“Dr. Foster and Gabe—they were trying to help us, even when it was their own neighbors they were siding against. The sheriff wanted to do the right thing, too, even if he started out wrong. Even Mr. Reed was just trying to protect his daughter, and the memory of his wife. Very few people are pure evil, Bruce. Sometimes I see the dark side, but sometimes I see the good where you wouldn’t have expected to find any.”

Bruce was shaking his head again.

Johnny turned to look at him. “And sometimes you see the best in people, like a friend who won’t leave you in trouble even though it might be dangerous for him.”

Bruce’s cheeks burned. “Johnny—”

Johnny held up a hand. “Or Dana, who dropped everything to come help. Or Walt, for that matter, who doesn’t even like me but has stuck by me more times than I can count. You’re all good people, Bruce. I probably know better than most just how good.” He raised a knowing eyebrow at Bruce that made him splutter a laugh. “It’s not all darkness out there. There’s also a lot of light.”

“Light, huh?” Bruce found himself slowly nodding. He’d sort of forgotten that part in the madness of Hobbs Landing, but he knew what Johnny meant. Maybe he didn’t have psychic vision to let him peer into the corners of his friends’ souls, but he didn’t need it to know most of them were loyal to a fault. Good people, as Johnny said. And that was a lot of light to counter the darkness they found in people—God’s light shining through people, as his dad would have said. “You know, you’re very poetic for a white guy.”

Johnny shrugged one-shouldered. “I think I heard it in a Santana song,” he said, a real smile finally brightening his own face.

Bruce smiled back, grateful for the turn of conversation, and the release of the tension that had squeezed his chest ever since he’d first tried to leave town. How wrong the people of Hobbs Landing had been about Johnny. They’d been so deeply in the darkness, they hadn’t even noticed the light. And Bruce found himself feeling sorry for them, too. Not the first lesson he’d learned from Johnny Smith, and probably not the last.

Bruce’s smile widened into a grin.

“You know, speaking of songs, OutKast—”

Johnny laughed. “Don’t even go there, man.” He pulled out into the road again.

“If you’d just give them a chance…”

“I touched the tape already, remember? And you call that music?”

Bruce stared at him suspiciously. “You’re tellin’ me you can hear the music if you touch the tape?”

A noncommittal shrug.

“Well, if you’re gonna play that ancient music of yours again, I’m gonna take a nap,” he said, happily petulant.

“Be my guest.” Johnny was already reaching for his tape. But his hand brushed Bruce’s leg and, briefly, gave it a friendly pat.

Touching was allowed again; they were good. And Bruce couldn’t agree more. 

Grumbling, he put his seat back and curled on his less-battered side, toward Johnny, as the first strains of “classic” rock filled the car.

But he was smiling as he dozed off.


End file.
